Off The Record

Well, well, well. The 2015 Meredith Music Festival lineup dropped last week, and it’s safe to say that two of the electronic headliners will also be making the trip to Sydney this December – those being Glasgow stalwarts Optimo and the always on-point Floating Points.

That said, it might be worth road tripping on down just to see our very own Levins command the Sup late one night. That’ll be special.

Speaking of festivals – holy shit, the Lost Paradise lineup has some fierce electronic talent. My highlights? You cannot miss the highly anticipated return of Motor City Drum Ensemble [pictured]. I repeat, cannot. Plus a healthy dose of the likes of Jon Hopkins, Four Tet, Âme, Ben UFO, Finnebassen and Prosumer won’t go astray. Lost Paradise takes over Glenworth Valley from Tuesday December 29 – Thursday December 31.

Red Bull Music Academy has announced the next headliner of its monthly club night series will be none other than Dego. One of the biggest broken-beat talents in the world, the 4hero founding member and 2000Black label head will be bringing over his signature concoctions of soul, reggae, hip hop, techno and jazz for a national tour. The Sydney leg is set to go down on Friday September 25 at Goodgod Small Club with support from Simon Caldwell and Ed Seven. As always, it’s completely free with RSVP.

The next instalment of Something Else is set to feature Berlin-based UK house and techno head Mark Henning. Both a revered DJ and producer, in the past Henning has released on labels such as Soma, Hypercolour and Poker Flat, and also runs his own imprint, Swing. He’s performed at basically every damn club on the planet, including Fabric, Panorama Bar, Watergate, Rex, Space, Lux and The Arches. You can catch him on Saturday September 12 at the Burdekin Hotel.

Some solid reading material: legendary local party purveyors Astral People sat down with GQ Australia to chat about the state of dance music in Australia, how lockout laws are affecting Sydney, our finest international exports and more. Head to gq.com.au to have a squiz.

Tour rumours: rising New York deep house torchbearers Frank And Tony will be visiting our shores next month. Another duo, Italy’s Tale Of Us (who were voted the second best DJs in the world by Resident Advisor in 2014), also have eyes set on Australia. And it’s not really my cup of tea, but Boys Noize will be here over the NYE period.

Best releases this week: putting forward a really big tip on Roustam’s The Shape Of Deep To Come (on All Inn). Highly recommended. Other highlights include Karen Gwyer’s Bouloman (Nous), Dynamo Dreesen, SVN & A Made Up Sound’s Acido 20 (Acido), Mr. G’s Sweatbox (Dungeon Meat) and Diego Krause’s Unison Wax 03 (Unison Wax). In more ridiculous release news, Matthew Herbert has announced that his next album The Music will come in the format of a book: “For my next record, I will write a description of the record rather than make the music itself. It will be divided into chapters in the same way that an album is separated into tracks. This is that book.” Sorry dude, I can’t take that shit seriously.